Spyro the Dragon: Five Minutes to Midnight
by Sinder
Summary: Entry for JustForFaun's Halloween artwork contest! One-shot in which Spyro and company face off against the wizard Ripto in a bid to free Avalar from his reign of terror once and for all!


**Spyro the Dragon: Five Minutes to Midnight**

_By Sinder_

_DISCLAIMER: Spyro the Dragon and all related characters are the property of Activision, and are used here without permission for entertainment purposes only. This story was not written for profit, nor was it written to libel Activision or the Spyro the Dragon property._

_For Razz_

"Five minutes!"

Elora could barely hear Hunter's voice over the chaos around her. Ripto's crystalline scepter hissed and sputtered where she had shattered it upon the ground, and the trio of dragons at her side were growling and snarling with the effort of simply holding him in place; the sorcerer himself was grunting back at them, twisting in their grasp and uttering all manner of curses in his guttural, incomprehensible native tongue. The Professor's portal loomed over their group, its metallic silver surface gleaming in the light of the full moon, and had begun emitting a low, steady hum ever since they had switched it on.

"Begin the activation sequence, Hunter!" Elora yelled back. "Quickly!"

The cloaked cheetah was hunched over by the side of the portal, his fingers dancing across the keypad with such speed that Elora couldn't keep track of them; she only heard the rapid beeps as Hunter input the first numerical combination needed to start the machine. "Orb one is holding!" he called out. As he spoke, one of the green spheres embedded in the surface of the device rotated where it sat, sank into its socket with an audible _shunk_, and began to glow brightly. "Orb one is locked in place!"

"_Release me, you wretched dragons!" Ripto roared, struggling against the grip of his captors. The diminutive dictator didn't look like much―he was shorter than Elora was, and she herself was smaller than any of the dragons were―but he was as strong as an ox; it had taken the combined efforts of Spyro, Flame, and Ember to capture him, and Elora could plainly see that it was taking all of their strength just to keep him pinned down. All three of them were breathing heavily, panting in exhaustion, the muscles of their heavily built reptilian bodies flexed taut beneath their scales with the strain, their eyes clenched shut and their teeth grit together... and Elora was right there with them, wearing the same expression upon her face. She knew that she wasn't nearly as strong as Spyro and the others, but she couldn't just stand idly by and watch helplessly while they risked their lives for her and the rest of Avalar... she had to do something._

"That's not going to happen, you little runt!" Ember hissed at the squirming ex-monarch. "We're sending you back where you came from!"

" _I'll never return to that place! " Ripto shrieked. The demon began thrashing about even harder than before, despite the weight of the three dragons and the faun atop him. "Never! I will see you and your world burnt to ashes first!"_

"You've done enough damage already, wizard!" Spyro growled. He seemed to handle Ripto's resistance best; both his foreclaws were pressed against the sorcerer's chest, keeping him pinned to the ground. Elora was amazed that he wasn't simply crushed beneath the dragon's weight. "The people of Avalar will never suffer your tyranny again!"

"_Tyranny?" Ripto abruptly ceased his struggles, and looked genuinely aghast at the accusation. "It is my right to rule! I am superior to you lower life-forms! You should all be honored to be my subjects!" The fact that he actually managed to sound magnanimous only served to make Elora's blood boil; she was about to make a retort, but Flame beat her to it._

"_If we're the lower life-forms," the red dragon mused, "then how come you're the one with his face in the dirt, half-pint?"_

"_RRRRRRGH!" The wizard was fighting again, with more ferocity than ever, writhing and twisting beneath them like an angry snake. Spyro and the others held him fast, for the moment, but Elora knew that their stamina wouldn't last forever._

"Shut up, Flame!" she scolded the crimson drake. "Hurry, Hunter!"

"_Orb two is holding!" Hunter replied. Shunk. "Orb two is locked in place! Four minutes!"_

"_Listen to me," Ripto said. Elora could hear the pleading desperation in his voice. "We can rule this world together. I will make all of you my generals. With our combined strength, no one in all the realms will be able to stand against us. You will have power and riches beyond your wildest dreams!"_

"_My dream is an Avalar without you in it, monster," Elora growled. She and Flame were gripping Ripto by one of his arms, although she could barely stand to touch him; he was a hideous creature, with limbs that were too small for his body, rough, ruddy skin that reminded Elora of an orange peel, and a single, gnarled, spiraling horn that grew out of the top of his head like some kind of grotesque unicorn. "You're not getting away. Not this time!"_

"_Orb three is holding!" Shunk. "Orb three is locked in place!"_

The hum from the portal had grown into an audible droning sound, a buzzing in the air that drowned out the sound of the chill night wind. Elora could see the faint green aura of energy emitted by the orbs as it surrounded the gateway, growing larger and stronger with each passing second. Everything her people had suffered and fought for had come down to this moment; after tonight, it would all be over.

"_NO!"_

The next sound Elora heard after Ripto's cry of defiance was that of all the air suddenly rushing out of Ember's lungs. The warlord had kicked her square in the stomach, a strike that sent the pink dragoness flying backward, hurtling her body into the air and through the trunk of a tree that split the night with a sharp _CRACK. _Elora barely had time to glimpse the look of horror upon Flame's face before Ripto tore his arm free of their grasp and used it to backhand them both; the frighteningly casual gesture was enough to send Flame crashing through the wall of the courtyard surrounding the portal, reducing it to rubble. Elora was more fortunate, as the glancing blow had only sent her sprawling upon the comparatively softer grass, but the frozen ground of the Winter Tundra was still cold and hard, and as it was, she felt like she'd been hit by a gnorc.

That left only Spyro.

"Orb four is holding!" _Shunk._ "Orb four is locked in place! Three minutes!"

Elora could barely see straight. She felt dizzy, and her head still throbbed from the impact of Ripto's fist; the coppery taste of blood in her mouth told her that she also had a busted lip for her trouble. A woozy, failed attempt to stand sent her crumpling back to her knees. She could only watch as the little troll squeezed Spyro's claws within his hands, drawing a roar of pain from the purple dragon. Breaking Ripto's scepter had robbed him of his magic and made him more vulnerable, and Spyro was stronger than either Ember or Flame, but even so, he was still no match for the demon all by himself. Elora gasped as Ripto began to punch him, first with a right, then with a left, and finally with an uppercut flush to the dragon's jaw that flung him back through a good-sized boulder, shattering the rock into pebbles. Spyro slumped amidst the debris and did not move. Elora rubbed her eyes, trying to clear them of their double vision, and thought she saw Ripto's figure moving against the moonlight.

He was advancing toward her.

Elora scrambled backward where she sat, trying to put some distance between herself and the warlock, but it was no use; where would she go? She couldn't simply abandon her friends, couldn't abandon Spyro, and if they failed tonight, then no place in Avalar would be safe from Ripto's burning touch. Despite the cobwebs that clouded her mind, she could still make out the fanged smirk upon his face, and the eyes that glowed like fire within their sockets.

"You inferior weakling," Ripto sneered. The very sound of his voice made Elora shudder; it was a gravelly, scratching sound, like nails on a chalkboard. "If three dragons couldn't stop me, what makes you think that a goat-creature like yourself ever had a chance?" He was leering closer to her, drawing nearer, and nearer... she could almost smell his hot, stinking breath upon her face. Elora's hands frantically ran through the grass behind her, searching for something that could be used as a weapon. A stone, a brick, a tree branch, _anything._

They found Ripto's scepter.

"Orb five is holding!" _Shunk._ "Orb five is locked in place!"

"Goat?" Elora hissed through her teeth. "I'm a faun, you _asshole!_"

Elora curled her fingers around the length of metal, squeezed her eyes shut, and swung. It was what Sparx, had he been there, would have called a "major league" swing, and if that was the case, then Elora most certainly hit a home run. Although the crystal head of the scepter was jagged and broken, the rod itself was quite solid, made of a golden material that was harder and heavier than anything smithed in Avalar... and it caught Ripto full across the side of the face, a blow that sent the wizard to his knees. Elora couldn't kill him, though not for lack of trying―the demon was immortal, she knew that―but at the very least, she could slow him down. She grimaced as she watched the scratches the shattered crystal had dug into his face begin to heal before her eyes, small, hissing jets of fire escaping from the wounds as they sealed themselves.

"_Faun," Ripto pointedly rasped, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His baleful eyes were narrowed to mere slits. "You'll pay for that."_

Elora grunted in reply, as if to make a dare, and readied the scepter for another swing, but she never got the chance. From somewhere behind her came a sound unlike any she had ever heard, something that was a hiss, a snarl, and a deep, dark growl all rolled together into one throaty, guttural noise. From out of nowhere a large, dark blur of a shape slammed into Ripto, sending both itself and the sorcerer toppling to the ground. They rolled over and over together in a tangle of black and orange, brawling like a pair of dogs; the surrounding darkness made it difficult for Elora to discern the features of the newcomer, but under the glow of the moonlight, she caught brief, fleeting glimpses of a long, spaded tail, broad, batlike wings, and sharp, curved spikes.

"Sweet Ancestors..." Elora whispered in horror.

_It was Spyro. Or rather, it had been Spyro; the thing that was busy mauling Ripto was still a dragon, that much she could tell, but it had nothing else in common with the Spyro that Elora knew. It was not the dark, attractive purple that he had been, but jet black from head to toe. The eyes were not his soft, affectionate shade of violet, but a hot, glowing white like the light of the sun. Everything about him looked wrong, from his wings to his claws to his teeth: they all appeared larger, and somehow more... wicked than normal. But the starkest difference of all was the way he acted. Spyro had never enjoyed violence, and even when forced to that point, he always preferred trying to talk his way out of a confrontation. The beast before her certainly wasn't interested in talking; it behaved like an animal, gripping the screeching Ripto within its jaws and shaking him back and forth like a rag doll._

"_Orb six is holding!" Shunk. "Orb six is―YEARGH!"_

The yell swiftly drew Elora's attention back to Hunter. The portal was almost at full power now, and Elora could literally feel the electricity in the air, causing her fur to stand on edge; the green aura around the portal glowed brightly, lighting up the night and creating a loud crackling sound that filled her ears. The six orbs set around the portal itself were all illuminated; only the seventh, at the apex of the archway, remained dark. Errant bolts of energy arced and danced along the edges of the structure, lashing out at anything that happened to be nearby... including Hunter. The cheetah sat back upon his haunches, writhing in agony, the fur upon both of his outstretched paws scorched black by the sheer power of the gateway.

"_Locked! Orb six is locked!" he cried out. "Two minutes left!"_

Elora staggered toward the spot where the injured cheetah lay. Her legs felt sluggish, reluctant to move... Ripto must've hit her harder than she thought. But then, she supposed she was lucky that the imp hadn't simply taken her head clean off her shoulders. She knelt down at the feline's side, and instinctively lifted her hands toward his own, before abruptly jerking them back, realizing that she probably shouldn't touch his charred paws. "Hunter? Are you all right?" She realized that it was a dumb question to ask, but she didn't know what else to say.

"I'm fine," Hunter hissed. He was clearly in a great deal of pain, but as usual, he was being stubborn and trying to hide it. "I can't key in the last sequence, Elora... you'll have to do it for me."

"Me?" Elora said. "Hunter, I don't know if I can. I can barely stand up, let alone operate something as complex as the portal."

"You can do it, Elora," Hunter said, drawing a sharp, pained breath into his lungs. "I know you can. Because if you can't... then may the gods help us all."

Elora drew in a shaky breath of her own. She nodded her head, slowly, and unsteadily made her way to her feet, leaning up against the side of the portal. She blinked her eyes several times, but no matter how hard she squinted, the numbers on the keypad still appeared fuzzy; the fact that her hands were shaking didn't help matters. "What's the final sequence?"

"Two-two-four-seven-five," Hunter said. "You must hurry. If we don't open the portal in the next minute and a half, we never will."

"Two... two... four..." Elora pressed each button slowly and deliberately. She knew that time was of the essence, but it was better to be cautious then to make a mistake, especially with the way her fingers were trembling. Then, suddenly, she stopped, and pressed herself against the edge of the machine. _"Spyro!"_ she shouted. _"Get back! You're too close to the portal!"_

At first, she wasn't sure he would be able to hear her over the tremendous din of the portal and the streaks of energy that were streaking across the sky and scarring the land of the tundra. And even then, the bestial black dragon might not be able to understand what she was saying. But she appeared to have reached him; he lifted his head from the still-struggling Ripto, and when he spoke, his voice was an almost alien rasp, like the echo in a deep canyon. **"Don't worry about me!"** he replied. **"Open the portal now!"**

"_I can't!" Elora yelled. "If I do, you'll be pulled inside! I can't do that!"_

"_**You must, Elora!" Spyro roared. The very sound was enough to send a shiver down Elora's spine. "Avalar will be only the beginning! Next will be the Dragon Shores, and then the Forgotten Realms! He'll burn a path of destruction across the entire multiverse unless we stop him here and now! If we miss the opportunity, we won't get another chance for an entire year!"**_

Spyro was right. The gateway to Ripto's homeworld could only be opened on one night―tonight--All Hallow's Eve. It had taken all day just to lure the wizard to the Winter Tundra, and now they had only a matter of minutes to get him through the gate. If the portal wasn't open by midnight, it would be another year before they could try again.

_A year from now, there might not be an Avalar left to save, Elora thought._

"_I'll never go back!" Ripto continued to rage, thrashing about ineffectually within Spyro's clutches. "Never never never!"_

"_**Please, Elora!" This powerful creature, who could crush her so effortlessly, was actually begging for her help. "It's up to you! Whatever it takes, don't let him hurt anyone else!"**_

Elora stood petrified, her fingers frozen in place over the keypad. Tears were running down her cheeks, although her mind did not register them.

"Elora!" Hunter yelled.

Her world or her love. Her heart or her soul.

"Elora, what are you waiting for? We have only one minute left!"

That wasn't a choice. She was damned either way.

"_Elora, for the gods' sakes!"_

"_... seven, five. Orb seven is holding!" Elora tried, and failed, to keep her voice from breaking. "Orb seven is locked in pl--"_

She was cut off by the roar of flame that erupted from within the portal. That was the first thing she noticed: the heat. Despite the cold October night and the perpetually frosty weather of the Winter Tundra, the air felt suddenly, unbearably hot, as if she were standing next to a blast furnace. Then came the smell. Elora hadn't encountered it since the first time they had accidentally opened the door to Ripto's dimension, and had almost forgotten the odor; it was a horrible, noxious smell, thick with sulfur, one that brought fresh tears to her eyes and stole the breath from her lungs.

And then there were the screams. Oh, she had tried very, very hard to forget the screams. The smell was bad, but it never gave her nightmares like the tormented groans and cries of suffering that issued forth from the bright red glow of Ripto's world. Some of the voices were barely audible whispers, and others were angry shouts, but most were begging, pleading cries, some asking for help, others asking for death. Elora had many reasons to hate Ripto, but the memory of the open portal, the searing red flames within, and the tortured voices that haunted her dreams was what she hated most of all.

Spyro himself had wasted no time; the moment the gateway had burst open, he had spit the flailing Ripto into the active portal. The little warlord didn't even have time to scream before he disappeared into the vortex of cross-dimensional fire. Spyro, however, went more slowly: the dark dragon was gradually losing ground, being pulled toward the gate little by little. He was digging his claws into the ground for traction and even spread his wings wide upon his back in an attempt to slow down, but Elora could plainly see that he was fighting a losing battle.

"Ripto's gone, Hunter!" she shouted. "We did it! We've got to shut down the portal!"

"We can't!" Hunter yelled back. "The energy from the gate has fused the circuits! We have to wait for the portal to close on its own!"

Elora clung to the exterior of the portal with her fingers, although the surface of the machine was smooth and didn't afford her much of a grip; even here, at the edge of the gate, out of the direct path of the vortex, she could still feel herself being buffeted by the winds that swirled around her. "How long?"

"Less than a minute!"

Flame and Ember had recovered from Ripto's earlier attack; both were huddled together behind a large tree, using it as a shield against the pull of the dimensional rip. Elora watched Spyro inch closer and closer to the portal, clumps of dirt and grass being torn from the ground by his gripping claws, only to be sucked into the gate. "Spyro doesn't _have_ a minute!"

She didn't know why she ran. She was vaguely aware of Hunter calling after her, telling her to stay put. In hindsight, it was a pretty stupid thing to do, especially considering how banged-up she was. After all, it's not as if she could have actually done anything. She couldn't have closed the portal. She certainly couldn't have held back a dragon with her bare hands. But as before, she had to do something, had to do anything, even if it meant putting herself between him and the doorway.

And so she ran anyway.

The next sensation she could recall was that of being weightless. She faintly remembered the sight of her hand outstretched toward Spyro, and then that of her hooves as they left the ground beneath her. There was that terrible wind that whistled in her ears, the maelstrom that surrounded her, the heat and the screams and the awful red light that grew closer and closer as she fell away from him...

And then he grabbed her.

She thought, for one brief, horrified instant, that he had sacrificed himself in an attempt to save her. It wasn't until he was holding her by the arms and she was able to look past him that she saw they had _all_ saved her: Flame's tail was wrapped around the trunk of a tree, Ember's tail was wrapped around Flame's neck, Ember's claws grasped Spyro's legs, and Spyro's claws grasped her. They had formed a chain of dragons to rescue her, and they were _still_ fighting against the pull of the portal as it sucked in everything around it. Broken pieces of stone and chunks of tree bark whizzed past Elora's ears as she hung suspended in the air.

"_Thirty seconds!" came Hunter's voice, somehow distant and far away._

Elora made the mistake of looking down. She saw the pieces of nearby debris being consumed by the blazing maw of the inferno as it yawned wide beneath her, saw the tongues of flame licking upward only inches beneath her hooves.

_And she saw Ripto._

"_Twenty seconds!"_

The imp was reaching for her from out of the abyss, clutching at her ankle with one of his stubby arms. She could see his orange skin searing and blistering from the heat of the firestorm of the portal, see how his eyes burned even more brightly than the flames that raged around him.

"_Ten seconds! Nine! Eight!"_

Elora lifted her free hoof and drove it squarely into Ripto's face, smashing his nose flat with a satisfying _crunch._ _"Go back to Hell!"_ Elora screamed. The demon who would be king let out a last, futile screech before he lost his grip upon her, and fell back into the swirling, fiery vortex, banished back to the place of punishment where he had been spawned.

"_Five... four... three... two... ONE!"_

There was a sound like the crack of thunder, and a bright flash that forced Elora to shut her eyes, before she suddenly found herself lying upon the ground. When she looked back at the portal, the smoldering pit that had occupied it was now gone; a faint red glow still rippled along the metallic archway, but even that was quickly fading away into the darkness of the night. Her ears were still ringing with the cacophony of sound that had filled the air only moments before, but now everything was strangely serene; an eerie quiet hung over the tundra, like that found on an abandoned battlefield, while the full moon shone silently down upon the victors from its place in the night sky.

"Midnight," Hunter sighed, as much to himself as anyone else. "It's over."

"Thank the gods," Elora breathed. "Finally." She turned her attention to Spyro, or what had once been Spyro, lifting her hands to gently cup his face within her palms. He was still different from her Spyro, still alien in a way, but the fear she felt when she had first laid eyes upon him was gone. His own eyes were still that vacant, empty white, but his expression had softened, and she thought she recognized a hint of something familiar within his face. "Is it you?" she whispered.

All at once, the darkness that engulfed him seemed to just melt away, flowing off his body like mud in a rainstorm, and he was her Spyro again. Battered, perhaps, and sporting a few ugly blue bruises upon his otherwise pristine purple scales, but her Spyro nonetheless. He leaned forward to rest his forehead against her own, his eyes lulling shut. "Why did you do that?" he whispered.

Elora returned the gesture, caressing Spyro's cheeks with her hands, delicately running her fingertips across the surface of his scales. "I had to help you," she murmured. "I thought I was going to lose you."

Spyro rubbed the tip of his snout against the faun's cheeks. "You'll never lose me," he replied. "I promise."

Elora allowed her own eyes to close, and leaned forward to close the distance between them, her lips drawing nearer and nearer to his own...

_AHEM._

The two of them gave a sudden start and turned to face the source of the sound. Ember and Flame stood beside them, looking every bit as disheveled as Spyro, and both with rather annoyed expressions upon their faces.

"_We're fine, thanks," Ember deadpanned. The pink dragoness appeared to be uninjured, although her collar was torn, her scales were liberally covered with splinters from the tree that Ripto had sent her smashing through._

"Yeah," Flame agreed, the red drake's scales caked with mud and rock dust. "Glad to know you care."

An amused, but warm smile creased Spyro's lips. "I'm pleased to see that you're all right, my friends," he said. He turned to the approaching Hunter, who was back on his feet, but gingerly nursing his burned paws. "Are you okay, Hunter?"

"I might not be able to play the piano," the cheetah mused, despite how he winced, "but I'll live."

"You should get that bandaged, Hunter," Elora said. "I'll take a look at it when we get back to Glitter."

"So, what now?" Ember asked, glancing back and forth across the battle-scarred landscape of the tundra. "With Ripto gone, what should we do?"

"_I know what I'm gonna do," Flame said. He was already trudging back in the direction of the portal that led to Glitter. "It's Halloween, and that means I'm gonna eat a bucket of candy and then go to sleep. I've had enough of this 'hero' crap for one day, it's too hard."_

"I would tend to agree," Hunter said, following along in the scarlet dragon's wake. "I think I need to soak my hands in ice water..."

Elora could not help but chuckle as her companions bantered among themselves. She had begun to follow them when she noticed that one of their group was missing, and stopped. Spyro was standing behind her, staring at the now-dormant portal. "Spyro?" she asked. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"_He's not actually dead, you know," he murmured, inclining his head toward the machine. "He can't die. He's still there, on the other side of the portal, just waiting. A year from now, our dimensions will come into alignment again. There's a chance he could come back through."_

"That's true," Elora said, "but if he does, you and I will be waiting for him." The faun bent down where she stood, pressing her lips against the purple dragon's cheek. "Now come on, hero, let's go home. I think you've earned a little rest."

_Spyro tilted his head into her touch, a soft growl drifting from within his throat. He walked along with her as they moved to join the others, pausing for a moment to cast a final glance over his shoulder at the ominous, moonlit silhouette of the portal. Elora was right, after all... he had earned a vacation, and he was very much looking forward to spending it with her. He decided not to give the gateway another thought._

At least, not until next year.


End file.
